"He never lived long enough down here for people to know enough about him to like him. He wasn't over and above fond of his lady, nor of her doings neither--so I've heard my mother say. He was, by all accounts, a very wild gentleman in his youth." "And old Mrs. Linchmore, his wife. Why was he not fond of her?" "She was a fearful woman!" replied Mrs. Hopkins, drawing her chair nearer Amy's; "very handsome in her youth. Mr. Linchmore married her for her beauty, and sorry enough he was for it afterwards. That's her picture hangs over the chimney-piece in the dining room, and a beautiful face it has; only too proud and stormy, like, to my mind." "Did you ever see her?" "Yes, Miss. I mind her just before she died. Six months before that happened, the housekeeper, who was a friend of my mother's, got me the under housemaid's place here. I seem to see the lady now, tall and straight as a needle, with such a stately step and proud look; her eyes bright, black, and piercing as a hawk's, although she was gone forty and more. I used to tremble whenever she looked at me, and many's the time I've run for the life of me down the long gallery to get out of her way. Oh! she was a fearful lady!" "How so?" inquired Amy, hoping to gain some intelligence as to why her room was so pertinaciously kept closed. "They say, Miss," replied Nurse, glancing uneasily about her, "that the house was haunted when she was alive. I can't say as ever I saw anything; but I believe it all the same, and so did my fellow-servants, though it was never whispered between us; certainly she was no good christian any more than Tabitha, her maid, who had lived with her ever since she was a girl, and knew all her secrets; and would be muttering to herself all day long. This was a strange house then, and I don't wonder the villagers were 'frighted to come near it." "Why so? surely a woman could do them no harm?" "Well, Miss, they said she could, and did do a deal of harm to them she didn't like; and then there was that bad story they had about her husband's cousin." "What was that, Nurse?" "I can't scarce tell you all the rights of it, Miss, only what I've heard people say, as you see it happened afore my time; but 'twas all about a cousin of her husband's, who had been adopted by his mother. My old mistress was fearful jealous of her, as well she might be if all accounts was true about her gentle, loving ways. But there, they didn't save her from being suspected by Mrs. Linchmore of carrying on at a shameful, scandalous rate with her husband, Mr. Linchmore. Poor young lady! She disappeared one night, and 'twas given out that she had fled from the Park to hide her shame. But there, people ain't blind; and then she never came back again, and so the villagers whispered 'twas a darker deed than that took her away so sudden." "But what did Mrs. Linchmore's husband say?"